Rev. David Rives — Big Bang Theory Is Doomed

The weekend must be approaching. We know this because the Retard-o-tron™ is especially busy at such times. As your Curmudgeon awoke this morning its lights were flashing and the sirens were blaring. The device had seized control of our computer and locked it onto the website of WorldNetDaily (WND).

Huh? It’s true that new evidence may demonstrate that a scientific consensus is wrong. If that should occur, scientists will accept the facts and abandon their misconceptions. This is why science has rejected the old, discredited views that the Earth is flat, young, the center of the universe, and influenced by the constellations of the zodiac. That’s why science is so successful — it doesn’t cling to ideas that have been shown to be false. Contrary to WND’s headline, even if the present-day consensus is eventually revised — as it surely will be when new evidence is discovered — it is science, because it’s the result of what is known at the time.

But we shouldn’t spend too much time criticizing WND’s headline. We need to see what the rev says. His video is titled Great Scientists: Louis Pasteur and the Germ Theory. It’s only a minute and a half long — a mere 90 seconds — but what glorious seconds they are!

The rev tells us about the once-prevalent miasma theory — that disease was caused by bad air. That was the belief in Pasteur’s time, but in spite of that theory’s widespread consensus, Pasteur developed the germ theory. It wasn’t immediately accepted. Pasteur urged young doctors and scientists to be patient, and not to give in to skepticism.

Using that for inspiration, the rev says that the Big Bang is similarly accepted today. But it’s got an increasing number of problems, and there’s an authoritative alternative: “In the beginning …”

Yes, dear reader, the rev leaves us with the hope that one day the Big Bang will go the way of the miasma theory. Click over to WND and take a look — it’s always thrilling to watch the rev.

As we always do with the rev’s videos, we dedicate the comments section for your use as an Intellectual Free Fire Zone. You know the rules. Go to it.

if you’re interested in discussing this [the closure of Blue Ridge Academy], go for it.

To be honest, I struggle with such cases. On the one hand, it’s a private school, and no matter how flat-out lunatic its ‘teachings’ may be, I can’t find legitimate grounds on which such institutions could be statutorily closed down: such a cure, in my view, would be worse than the disease.

On the other hand, such cases fill me with sympathy for Dawkins’ rather hard-line view that any form of religious indoctrination of the young is tantamount to child abuse. Whose rights trump whom here, the right of a parent to select the form of ‘education’ for their child, or the child’s right to receive a standard education?

Really don’t have any answers–so I am grateful when the ‘invisible hand’ of economics intervenes and shuts these damaging places down. It’s not a noble or even defensible sentiment on my part, but there it is.

Megalonyx says: “Really don’t have any answers–so I am grateful when the ‘invisible hand’ of economics intervenes and shuts these damaging places down. It’s not a noble or even defensible sentiment on my part, but there it is.”

On the contrary, the free market approach is both noble and defensible. If an institution can flourish in the free market, that’s just fine. But if it would fail without government aid — which involves forced contributions from taxpayers who would not otherwise support such an institution — then let it fail.

Frank J, if I recall correctly, some scientists partial to the steady-state model fretted when the big bang theory was proposed that it might be a sneaky way theists were introducing creationism into cosmology.

Even now, it’s hard for me to understand why some old-earth creationists try to make much of the “Cambrian explosion” but don’t exploit the big bang in the same way.

Of course, YEC’s can’t very well subscribe to either one without admitting that the creator is deceitful. Even if it was Satan who forged the record of starlight and fossils in order to lead sinners astray, the YEC worldview says the Omnipotent One would have had to be ultimately responsible.

“such a cure, in my view, would be worse than the disease.”
Why? It’s (not common, but that’s because it doesn’t happen too often) practice in Europe and it’s not my impression that the educational system there is worse off.

the free market approach is both noble and defensible. If an institution can flourish in the free market, that’s just fine.

Well, I’m going to quibble a bit here, though on a trivial matter of stylistics rather than any issue of substance.

Markets are neither noble nor ignoble, neither moral nor immoral–but amoral. I believe I understand why other attributive language often turns up in such discussions: one may very soundly observe and argue that free markets are ‘better’ (more efficient, more equitable) than designed ‘command economies'; that may indeed be true (I strongly hold it so myself), but that is not the same as saying free markets are ‘good’ in any meaningful sense outside such narrow comparisons to proposed alternatives.

Or rather, it would be as meaningless as describing gravity as ‘good’ (or ‘noble’ or any other such attribute); gravity just is. We may choose to think gravity a ‘good’ thing while scuttling about the surface of our planet, or we may think of it as a ‘bad’ thing should we happen to inadvertently step off the cliff-edge of the Grand Canyon; in neither case, though, have we said anything meaningful about the nature of gravity, we have merely pronounced a solipsistic value judgement that only reveals something of our nature, not anything about the physical world around us.

It’s a trivial point, granted; I only raise it because of the parallel with evolution, another natural phenomenon to which we attach no end of inappropriate value judgements–and I think that is the source of much hysteria in Creationists.

Megalonyx pontificates: “Markets are neither noble nor ignoble, neither moral nor immoral–but amoral. … It’s a trivial point, granted; I only raise it because of the parallel with evolution, another natural phenomenon to which we attach no end of inappropriate value judgements …”

I don’t wanna beat this to death, but we disagree. Markets are the result of human activity, so they’re not impersonal things like gravity or evolution, which, I grant, are neither moral nor immoral. Consider an un-free labor market — you and your whole village are conscripted to toil all your lives building Stonehenge. That’s very nice for the tourist trade, millennia hence, but not very good for you. If, during your days of drudgery, the Intelligent Curmudgeon descended from above and set you free, you would think that your freedom is “good.”

What I’m getting at is the undebatable point that if coercion is bad, then its absence must be good. (I know, I know, people will then be free to make stupid and even harmful choices; but that’s a different issue.)

Retired Prof: “Of course, YEC’s can’t very well subscribe to either one without admitting that the creator is deceitful.”

Keeping in mind that only ~20% of the general public is strict YEC believers, and only ~0.1% YEC activists who insist that (carefully mined and fabricated) independent evidence confirms that politically convenient literal interpretation of Genesis:

All of them, plus OECs, Omphalist creationists, and even theistic evolutionists (I qualify if barely), have no problem reconciling that God allows death and suffering. So why should it bother them if He teases them with some false evidence for things that happened way before anything that affects us? Some (Omphalists) even shrug it off as a test of faith. And from what I can tell, the ~20% of rank-and-file YECs, mostly start retreating to Omphalism when confronted by the overwhelming evidence against young earth and young life. Rank-and-file YECs and OECs have not thought it through, but like TEs and Omphalists, deep down they know that, if God gave us free will, it doesn’t matter in the least how it all started or to whom or what we are related. But the activists keep telling them that they can have it both ways.

As for OEC and ID activists, some do treat the BB the same way as the Cambrian, but are more interested in the latter because it applies to life. Nevertheless, it’s another hopeless difference (BB deniers vs those who think it’s evidence of God) that is swept under the table by the more savvy “big tent” activists.

Well, yes—but less, possibly, than you may think, and not in the particular instance you offer of the bondsmen enslaved to build Stonehenge. My post specifically grants that ‘free markets’ are indeed better than ‘command economies’. The point I was (somewhat ham-fistedly) attempting to make was: to state that A is ‘better’ than B does not necessarily mean that A is a positive good (e.g, “It’s better to have psoriasis than to have skin cancer, but that’s still pretty icky.”). So I suppose our disagreement amounts to my rejection of “undebatable” about your point that “if coercion is bad, then its absence must be good.” My objection is simply that terms like “good” (and the like) tend to make it a discussion about ethics rather than empiricism, which is precisely the basic category error of the Creationists in discussing evolution, and why discussion with them is so often futile or at utterly cross-purposes: in other words, don’t take Ethics to Epistemology fight, and vice versa.

No argument from me that ‘free markets’ are preferable to any known alternative—but that is not the same as elevating ‘Marketism’ as some sort of moral ‘good’; my judgement here is a pragmatic determination I believe is grounded in empirical observation of ‘more free’ versus ‘less free’ market arrangements. But markets are a lousy place to look for moral grounding. Part of the reason for that is of course, as you point out, that a free market must permit individuals to make “stupid and even harmful choices.” But even more tellingly, markets cannot provide a measure of what are ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ choices (if only because it cannot predict ‘good’ or ‘bad’ outcomes of choices), which tells me we need to look elsewhere to discuss such topics; as you said, it’s a “different issue.”

I’m not making a big point here, but I think it has real bearing on the Crevo Wars. The Creationists (and I include thereby the DI and the Wedge agenda) think there are ethical inferences (of which they disapprove) to be drawn from evolution—and, to reject such inferences, believe they must reject not only the empirical evidence but also the epistemological methodology of science. But that is a fundamental category error, the process of evolution is no more good nor bad than the complex and self-adjusting system such as a free market. Attempting to judge such systems in that way leads to a pretzel of teleological mind-numbing question-begging.

All that said, I am rather taken with the notion of the Intelligent Curmudgeon descending from on high and leading mankind onwards to enlightenment!

Megalonyx says: “My objection is simply that terms like ‘good’ (and the like) tend to make it a discussion about ethics rather than empiricism … No argument from me that ‘free markets’ are preferable to any known alternative — but that is not the same as elevating ‘Marketism’ as some sort of moral ‘good’; my judgement here is a pragmatic determination I believe is grounded in empirical observation of ‘more free’ versus ‘less free’ market arrangements.”

Now we’re getting in too deep. To simplify it (I’m a simple man), unless one’s ethics come from Mt. Sinai (or maybe Mt. Olympus or some other divine source), then ethics are ultimately derived from empiricism. Therefore, free markets — with all their sloppiness and such — are “better” than unfree markets.

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